...because i just can't hold it in. i try to be an environmentally conscious consumer. i have canvas tote bags for groceries/other purchased products. i buy environmentally sound dish soap and trash bags and paper towels. i reuse my ziploc bags. i recycle. i bring my travel mug wherever i go since i'm such an avid coffee drinker. that way, if i decide to stop, i have my mug with me. i even have a iced coffee container that i bring around on hot days.
i go into the dunkin donuts (the hypocrisy of a self-proclaimed environmentally conscious consumer buying coffee at dunkin donuts is yet to be determined). i say, holding out my mug, "can i have a french vanilla with cream and sugar please?"
the person behind the counter says, "what size is this?"
i say, "medium."
she pours the coffee into BOTH a small and medium sized disposable cup and then into my mug, discovering that of course, it is a medium.
this is the SECOND time this has happened to me. the first time, it was with my iced coffee container, which is an actual dunkin donuts piece of merchandise (my regular travel mug is not). i told the cashier it was a large (which she should have known, being an employee of the company which manufactures this container), and she used a small, medium, AND large plastic cup full of water to determine the exact size. which is large. "you're right," she said.
yes. yes i am right. meanwhile, more waste had been produced than if i had just purchased the coffee straight out. GAH.
we now return you to peaceful world of poetry.
5 comments:
That's happened to me before. Not the waste, the distrust.
So then I stopped saying "tall" or "medium," depending on which coffee shop it is, and started holding out my mug and saying "12 ounces." It works.
I also have a gazillion tote bags! I got them all for free, though, from conferences or weird promotional freebies. My favorite is my CSPAN bag that I got at a conference.
i will try that now. but i wouldn't so much mind the distrust if it wasn't for the waste.
i bought my trader joe's tote bag (and i shamelessly use it in other stores), but my other one is from Yankee magazine.
Mine are all freebies: CSPAN from a political conference, the Children's Alliance from a youth advocacy conference, some temp agency we use at work for receptionists, and like 3 or 4 work-related bags. Oh, and the random Colby Latino Heritage Month one that they gave me for buying X amount of stuff at the bookstore during Latino Heritage Month eons ago.
Varying sizes and colors.
I admit that though they were all free, I did shamelessly snatch some before they ran out. Exept the Colby one. They just handed that to me and said "We're giving these away this month."
Oh my word... so I haven't checked your blog in a week or so b/c of stupid medical school... but this story made me laugh out loud (surely disturbing my hard-studying flatmates) so I had to tell you! Thank you with all my heart from a girl that has struggled unsuccessfully all year to get her flatmates to use the composting container that is right in their kitchen (compost picked up weekly by husband of another classmate).
I might ease your conscience a little bit to know that Dunkin Donuts does have fairtrade coffee, and your efforts at bringing your own cup are much more commendable than my own habbits of using their styrofoam and then tossing it half finished on the floor of the back seat of my car.
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